Inspection Techniques for Complex Shape Glass Manufacturing
Pilkington Automotive is part of the NSG Group, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of glass and glazing products for Architectural, Automotive and established creative technology. Pilkington Automotive offers a substantial range of automotive glazing products and solutions including advanced windshields. Pilkington are seeking solutions to modernise the sag-bending technique for windshield manufacturing by incorporating smart manufacturing techniques. They seek solutions for inspection technology to measure the concave glass surface of glass at multiple locations within the furnace, creating live information for a digital twin that allows real-time optimisation of the furnace conditions and enhance quality control to meet the stringent requirements for Heads-up Displays (HUDs) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). The innovation exchange program will identify capable inspection partners to demonstrate proof of concept/feasibility, with further development needed to fully realise the concept.
Opportunity
Challenge opens
12/08/2024
Challenge closes
19/09/2024
Benefit
Pilkington are looking for new solutions to measure the shape of complex glass windshields (and other products) inside the bending furnace. The selected solution will be awarded £25,000 to work with the leading UK automotive glass manufacturer to trial a solution in 3 months, with a view to co-develop the concept at Pilkington Automotive Centre of Excellence for high volume manufacture. This iX challenge is a conduit to working with a global corporation with the potential to deploy the technology in other application areas of the business.
Background
Over the past 50 years almost every major advance in glass has come from Pilkington, from the invention of the float process to self-cleaning glass. Pilkington invests around £29 million a year in research and development focused on product development and manufacturing efficiency improvement.
Pilkington Automotive has pioneered techniques that have led to major industry firsts using complex glass shapes which require very tight tolerances for glass surfaces. These industry first include:
- Augmented reality HUD windshield (used in Mercedes)
- Major variable transmission roof light (used in Mercedes)
- The production of the wraparound windshield
- Electrically heated filament windshields
With the development of more autonomous vehicles comes more user centric design balanced with maintaining vehicle aerodynamics and efficiency. Designers are requesting more complex windshield shapes with potential for greater functionality.
Sag-bending is a non-contact method of shaping where the action of gravity on glass with a carefully controlled temperature distribution forms the desired multidimensional shape. The method can form highly complex glass shapes, with good clarity, using lightweight thin glass layers, because the glass shape is formed slowly, without contact, and with continuous heating. These strengths make it a potentially suitable technique for the advanced windshields now and in the future.
However, the application of sag-bending is limited by surface tolerances; process control (nature of the furnace), materials (the glass, any additional functional materials), and tooling variability (how the glass is supported). These interrelated parameters mean that the method cannot consistently achieve the quality required for head-up display (HUD) projection and can create issues for camera alignment.
Pilkington’s challenge focuses on incorporating smart manufacturing techniques to overcome these limitations and align the process with future vehicle requirements.
Pilkington have developed simulation models to design the process to achieve the required shape but this is not currently linked to the furnace directly. The temperature of the glass is monitored at multiple locations which can be used to understand the performance of the process, but it is preferable to measure the glass shape directly to achieve greater process control, and therefore improve yield and efficiency. The shape of the glass is measured after the process, but these techniques are not suitable in high temperature environments.
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